Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska wolf bait!

Went snow-running today down peninsula for moose or caribou. No sign of either til I bumped this orphan female calf about a mile after I crossed the fresh trail of two wolves. Regret now not following those on the off chance of getting a shot within 500 yards.

This calf stands virtually no chance of survival unless other caribou come along and she joins up. Dumbass new regs prevent me from killing her myself. Only pregnant females with or without year-calves are legal until Feb 1. This is supposed to help conserve the dwindling (230,000) herd.

Investigating a dozen or so (of many more!) ravens squatting out on the tundra, I found mostly field-dressed kills from the 2 day pass through. I found 3 calves, whether shot and left, or died after being orphaned and hanging around where they lost mom and the herd kept going, I don't know.

I watched this calf from 30 yards for a half hour, taking her pic with the cell phone, and she was pawing thru snow to reach forage, but otherwise was dumb as a rock...

Rough life out there in the wild

...thinking the best parts of that animal are still intact...did you salvage the leg bones for pataq and the tongue?

What's the alleged thinking on this?

No,Mark, I don't scavenge from unknown causes of death.

Mike - The WACH has been steadily shrinking by, IIRC, about 7% annually the last few years. Don't hold me to that - it's off the top of my head. Residents of its range (several GMUs) formed a "management advisory group", dominated by "subsistence" users, but including guides, outfitters, and various other stake-holders, ostensibly to slow or eliminate the decline. Probably hopeless IMO, due the elements determined solely by Mother Nature (the bitch!!! )

Rather than reducing season, harvest limits, or means of take, Native traditional practice was recommended and submitted to the Game Board, which passed it. No one knowledgeable takes bulls (at least big, actively rutting dominant "stink bulls") during the rut, anyway, roughly most of October and the first few days of November. So I'm OK with that restriction of October 14 closure (freeze-up on the rivers ends boat use about then) but the closure runs to Feb 1 - because the bulls aren't "fat" anymore, even tho their meat is fine after the 7th or so of November. Twere me, I'd close bull season Oct 7 to November 7, only.

Native subsistence hunters don't kill bulls again until Feb as a general rule, preferring to take "fat" cows, with or without calves of the year. I believe this a cultural leftover from the days of carbohydrate deprivation. There is certainly plenty of other fat and carbs in their diets now. They all claim they target only "barren" cows (without accompanying calves), however. Most of these are likely pregnant with another calf, rather than being truly barren. And of course, calves are often some little distance off from their mothers and may be missed in the moment, and some shooters just don't give a crap. But again, culturally, calf shooting is discouraged.

Orphaned calves of course hang around where they last saw mom and get left behind by the herd. They don't know where they are, where they are going, how to get there, anything much about predation, and are absent their mothers' help in finding forage and providing thermal protection in severe weather. It is not unusual to find frozen calves under decks and in lees right here in town, if a big shoot is followed by severe weather conditions.

Me- I have no problem with shooting a cow with a calf if the calf is taken also. Or shooting/eating orphan calves, half of which are males anyway. Did the latter last year; it was delicious and tender! And female.

But calves are also now all off limits, year round. But shooting cows with calves is not.

Furthermore, telling young bulls from cows is very difficult under most conditions and situations in the actual hunting field. Picking out a "barren" cow by antlers, size, and lack of calf without being able to note the penis sheath or vulva patch is highly likely to result in a young bull kill, usually edible even in the rut in my experience. Now not legal between October 14 and Feb 1 if one mistakes.

I believe the "sport" take for NR hunters has been reduced to 1 bull, but otherwise they are not impacted.

In effect these politically correct regulations are a feel-good solution to a problem that may not even be there, and if it is, are not just ineffective, but actually contribute to greater mortality. Human take is a low percentage of the herd - I think (without checking) less than 3%. 10% harvest level on a thriving herd is, I believe, the benchmark maximum game managers will not exceed.

Be it noted I know scavengers have to live also! I do not object to this use.

My objections are partly selfish in not being able to take bulls when they are both edible and available because of a cultural prejudice that doesn't apply to me.

Part of it is than these new regs are not only ineffective and largely not enforceable, but may actually be detrimental to the stated goal in that in meeting meat needs, it takes more cows than bulls to achieve the same mass, at least for those of us willing to shoot winter bulls, plus the potential (and I admit, speculative) waste of mistakes abandoned in the field and that of orphaned calf meat. Mandating killing 3 caribou (plus any other future offspring in successive years) to supply less protein than a bull (of less reproductive value to the herd as a whole) kill is simply bad game management driven by PC politics.

The biggest thing that bothers me is the suffering those orphaned calves will experience before they die, unless quickly killed by wolves or hunters. (A clear case of killing something to save it???? )

las- I've heard and read about all of that. It's the killing of pregnant cows as a plus for the herd that doesn't add up.

If the herd is going to crash no matter what, for whatever reasons, maybe it's moot?

I absolutely think that taking cows was probably a good thing when the NWA herd was 400K+ in size, and, yes, those cows are better eating than even the young adult bulls in winter. They were what we preferred when preferring was an option. Truth be told though it's easy to get one that doesn't have the parts you expect. Sometimes ADF&Gs judging expectations are kind of like hunting with Mini-14s and 55 FMJs. Does it work? Absolutely. Is it 100% effective? ............sometimes.

The KP herd had registration cow hunts about 10 years ago when the herd was at/past carry capacity. 'That' makes sense.

Can't see eating seed potatoes helping the yield.

Agreed- probably a moot point as to population dynamics, so BoG took the political way out with their handy dandy rubber stamp, even tho it's lip service game management .

Also fully agree with Marks last post.

I wouldn't have touched those remains either, but the irony of the fact that some of the most prized portions were still there wasn't lost on me.

I think it was McPhee in Coming into the Country who talked about cracking caribou legs bone which had been roasted in a open fire - don't think I read much beyond that in the tome. But anyway, those who haven't done so, have missed out on a fabulous treat if they haven't eaten the marrow of the leg bones of caribou; not saying that it would be best served in 90 degree weather as it is a rich treat, but certainly a fine addition to soups on blustery days in the arctic. Our freezers barely recognize caribou tongue.

You are going to have to tell me what to do with moose or caribou tongue the next time I'm fortunate! I"ll have to remember that though...

Would love to try it and the bone marrow just to see...

Caribou tongue is "really difficult". Generally if a caribou dies on the pre-camp side of things, his/her tongue never makes it to room temperature before it hits the skillet. Truly the only thing we do is clean the outer surfaces and remove hair, slice across it so you have a bunch of oval or circular disks about 1/4 inch thick, drop them in a medium hot skillet and season with salt (we use Lawry's Seasoned salt just because it's what we've always done), braise them on both sides - in a dry skillet; the tongue provides plenty of fat as it cooks. Caribou tongue has thin skin so it goes right down, not really noticeable. Moose tongue requires an effort more like a beef tongue (which we ate quite often when I was a kid since it was cheap). I like moose tongue, but caribou tongue is simply easy appetizers. It doesn't get an easier.

The leg bones - if you leave them in the field and return to an Eskimo household thereafter, be prepared to get your ears scalded. We simply skin them and use a saw to cut off the ends, perhaps cutting them in shorter 3-4" pipes. We either use them fresh if the weather is cool/cold, or freeze them for winter. They make fine, rich soup stock, and the pataq (sounds like "buttock") - Marrow can be sucked or otherwise removed and eaten straight up - of you like it that way, ro broken up into lumps in the soup. It's an easily acquired taste.

Mark - those 3 dead calves I found hadn't had any parts claimed by anything except fox and ravens, apparently. But I don't think they will leave anything in the field - just takes them some time.